Book Review: Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee

Source: stephanie-mcafee.com via Meredith on Pinterest

From the back of the book: Graciela "Ace" Jones is a sassy high school teacher, known in her small town of Bugtussle, Mississippi, for an outsize presence and a mouth to match. But this time that big mouth might get her into big trouble...

Ace knows that something bad is brewing when her best friend and co-worker, Lilly, cancels their annual spring break trip to be with a man--a man she's kept a secret for months. But the real trouble comes when Lilly is fired by their horrible principal--under suspicion of sleeping with a student of all things.

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To be honest, initially I wasn't sure that I'd like Ace Jones and Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee. I love sarcasm as much as the next girl, but sometimes when I feel like a character is always snarky just for the sake of being snarky, I get a little fed up. I didn't like it on The Bump, and I don't like it now. To be honest, had finishing the book not been a requirement of BlogHer Book Club, I'm not sure that I would have. From the first 10 pages of dialect, I wasn't particularly sure that I even liked the main character. I also did NOT understand how the snippet on the back of the book could relate to a novel that was billed as being funny. That said, I'm really glad it was a requirement to finish and that I did, because somewhere along the line I honestly grew to like both Ace and the book as a whole.

I think things turned around for me on page 19, where Ace's not-yet-best friend Lilly is described as being "as coordinated as a newborn giraffe" on the basketball court...because really, that's my life. I played tournament basketball for most of my life, and my coach used to say that I could trip over the lines on the floor. In college, my nickname really was "giraffe", taken after that newborn giraffe clumsiness. And really, when someone so perfectly captures your life in novel form, how can you not continue to read, if not only to try and discern whether the author was secretly spying on you and crafted a novel about your life?!

Anyway, what I came to find was that Diary of a Mad Fat Girl was a really fun read. In my head, I sort of likened it to some good reality TV--you know, like Top Chef or Project Runway. It was funny. There was some drama. Some competition. All the major issues were wrapped up at the end of the night. And you all know reality TV is my guilty pleasure, because sometimes, you just need something light and fun, and that's exactly what I found in Diary of a Mad Fat Girl.

Overall:



Join the discussion at BlogHer Book Club, or read an excerpt of Diary of a Mad Fat Girl here.

Disclosure Statement: This was a paid review as part of BlogHer Book Club. As always, all opinions regarding the book are my own and have not been influenced in any way. I don't think I could lie about a book if I wanted to.